


Dans L'Arbre

by Cranberrytaboo



Category: Disco Elysium (Video Game)
Genre: Depictions of Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hanging, M/M, Nightmares, Slow Burn, and... pinning? impalement?, burn so slow its barely smoldering but THERE WILL BE MORE LATER, general depictions of people having been murdered, not horribly graphic but still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:46:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23439400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cranberrytaboo/pseuds/Cranberrytaboo
Summary: "Martyrs die for their faith, but who would ever die for their faith in you?"The lines between reality and the imagination become blurred. How much of what Harry has seen is false, and how much of it is just a truth that is yet to be realized?
Relationships: Harry Du Bois/Kim Kitsuragi
Comments: 10
Kudos: 67





	Dans L'Arbre

YOU – Sunset in Martinaise is such a fraught affair. The sky turns an undeniably beautiful, if somewhat muted, ombre of pinks and oranges as the first tendrils of night creep into the corners of your view. Yet, each time day passes into night, it fills you with emotion.

COMPOSURE – Sorrow.

HALF LIGHT – Dread.

YOU – Where am I?

PERCEPTION(SIGHT) [Trivial: Success] – You’re in the backyard of the Whirling-in-Rags.

SHIVERS – It’s uncharacteristically quiet.

AUTHORITY – Where are those two beasts that everyone calls children?

DRAMA – You don’t particularly mourn their absence, my liege.

VISUAL CALCULUS – You came back here to try once more to piece together the puzzle, using the new information we’ve gathered to fill in the blank spaces.

SHIVERS – Look up.

YOU- Look up. 

Hanging from the tree is your victim, your Lely, your corpse. The body is a sickly, pallid color, bloated with advancing decay.

PERCEPTION(SMELL) – A horrendous odor. You brace for it—

YOU – But it never reaches your nostrils.

VISUAL CALCULUS – This is only a reconstruction. Mental images don’t *have* odors, Harry.

YOU – But if that’s the case… Why does the body look like it’s been here for even longer?

You blink, and when you’ve opened your eyes again, the body is gone. Only the remnants of the cable he was strung from remain.

HAND/EYE COORDINATION – The cord you hit thanks to yours truly. You’re welcome.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Easy: Success] – He told us it was a damn good shot.

YOU – The unusual silence creeps up your back, filling your ears with emptiness. It occurs to you that you’re completely on your own.

HALF LIGHT – We need to leave, now. We *can’t* be here.

YOU – You try to move, but it feels as if an invisible force is keeping you in place.

SHIVERS – Look up.

HALF LIGHT – DON’T look up.

YOU – Look up.

Your head slowly cranes, neck popping uncomfortably as you bend it back, your gaze trailing up the giant tree, scanning each reaching, intruding branch. Your eyes catch, it’s agony to look when the sun is right in your eyes. As your pupils pin tightly, adjusting to the light…

ENDURANCE – Your heart stops.

DRAMA – This can’t be real.

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant is suspended among the branches of the tree, pinned to the wood itself by several spikes driven through his body.

INLAND EMPIRE – The nails look like they may have been taken from a crumbling boardwalk, or a failing piece of architecture from this very city.

KIM KITSURAGI – His eyes are open, unseeing. His head is lulled forward, slightly to the side.

EMPATHY – His expression is not one of fear, but of a resigned melancholy.

KIM KITSURAGI – His body, his head is wreathed in light by the setting sun.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] – He looks like a painting, like an image painstakingly created in devotion to a martyr.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Failure] – There’s a story that just escapes you, of a martyr who was tied to a tree and riddled with arrows. That’s what this reminds you of.

YOU – Blink. Blink hard. Try to make this go away.

You blink and blink, eyes squinting shut, but each time your eyelids part, you’re greeted by the same scene.

You become acutely aware of the fact that you can’t breathe.

COMPOSURE [Formidable: Failure] – Why? How? What could have possibly, *who* could have—

SHIVERS – The clicking of ceramic armor.

YOU – But if that’s the case, then…

You run to the window, slamming your hands against the glass, trying to get someone’s attention. Anyone’s. Titus. Lena. Hell, even Garte.

PERCEPTION – Look inside. It’s a bloodbath.

YOU – Bloodbath doesn’t begin to describe the scene you see through the window. Everyone inside – every last one, even those who had nothing to do with this – massacred.

Your eyes land specifically on Titus. You had tried so desperately to warn him, to prepare him for the coming danger.

TITUS HARDIE – His eyes gaze upward, vacant. His torso is riddled with bullet holes. His hand grips at his own weapon.

ENCYCLOPEDIA – They brought the automatic weaponry after all. 

YOU – This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.

You grip your hands at your face, breath coming in wheezing gasps. The darkness of night begins to descend faster…

And you are surrounded…

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – By the sweet, sweet embrace of nothingness, once more.

LIMBIC SYSTEM – You are quivering, shaking, trembling. The rotted thing you call your heart is not equipped for this.

YOU – But… If you’re here, then… Then this is a dream!

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – No, Harry boy, not a dream, a premonition. A vision of the future that could be.

LIMBIC SYSTEM – Of a future that desperately wants to be. A future that struggles against the pathetic attempts that your limbs make to hold it back.

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – You’re a tornado, Harry, a wildfire. You blaze through life, ruining everything in your path.

LIMBIC SYSTEM – You’ve done it countless times before…

LOGIC [Medium: Success] – You recall the voices of your fellows at the precinct when you called them from the lieutenant’s Kineema. How exhausted, how frustrated they sounded.

EMPATHY – The pained and sorrowful look on the Horse-faced Woman every time she turns her gaze your way.

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – See, Harry? You know now, don’t you? You don’t even remember them, but you remember what you’ve done to them.

LIMBIC SYSTEM – How many times did you scare her before she couldn’t take it any longer? How many nights did she watch you ruin yourself before she couldn’t bear to look?

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – And here, history is begging to repeat itself, Harry. All the pieces are in place.

LIMBIC SYSTEM – And your disgusting, diseased hand is poised above them, ready to swipe and knock them all down.

YOU – I wouldn’t ever! I’m not going to do that, not again!

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – Harry, Harry. You don’t even remember what you’re promising not to do.

YOU – What… *am* I going to do?

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – You’re going to ruin them, Harry. You’re going to ruin him.

SHIVERS – Your blood runs cold.

LIMBIC SYSTEM – So cold, so painfully cold. You’ve been alone for so long, Harry.

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – You need someone to burn with you. You’ve always needed someone to burn with you.

LIMBIC SYSTEM – The camaraderie, the sparks, the suggestions light up electrical impulses through your bag of flesh. Fueling you.

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – And admit it, Harry. It feels good to watch him follow you like a loyal dog. You feel secure knowing he won’t walk away as you continue your downward spiral.

ESPRIT DE CORPS – The lieutenant has been tirelessly faithful. In all aspects of his life, he is consistent. He doesn’t *abandon* his brethren.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY – He doesn’t abandon someone he’s made a connection with.

LIMBIC SYSTEM – See? There it *is.* No matter how guilty you feel that you’ve dragged him down with you…

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – You need him around, like you need one more swig of the sweet elixir, or one more hit from the cigarette burning between your lips.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY – Or one more pill. One more shot. I can do this all day.

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – It’s too late for your beloved pet, and you know it. All you can do is watch him…

LIMBIC SYSTEM – And all of Revachol…

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – Fall to pieces just like you.

YOU – *No!*

You continue to scream the word, trying to deny everything laid out before you, it feels like your voice is caught in your throat.

LIMBIC SYSTEM – It’s cold, now. Even colder. Your pathetic form trembles from the chill.

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – But then, two little pinpricks of heat radiate from your shoulders.

LIMBIC SYSTEM – Something has you in its claws, Harry. The heat from your shoulders circulates through your struggling veins…

YOU – Wake up screaming.

You do exactly that. You sit bolt upright.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – Pushing past the pressure that hasn’t left your shoulders.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Easy: Success] – Your spine creaks as you move, but you barely feel it.

YOU – You only feel the sensation of hands squeezing your upper arms. Firmly, but not harshly.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Detective. Are you alright?”

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) – You survey the scene around you. The door to the shack has been thrown open, letting in the chill morning air. Before you is the lieutenant, half-perched on the side of your bed.

KIM KITSURAGI – He affixes you a severe gaze, but it’s riddled with concern. “You were screaming,” He explains, “when I arrived this morning. I thought…”

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] – He thought you were being attacked.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Hard: Success] – The lieutenant picked up many skills from his time posing as a delinquent. Namely, how to sidle open a locked door.

EMPATHY – It isn’t a side of himself he wanted to show you.

COMPOSURE [Formidable: Failure] – But now he’s in here, and *god* he’s alive!

PERCEPTION – His skin is flushed with life, gone is the pallor of death that hung over him as he languished in the tree…

YOU – Grab the lieutenant and pull him into a hug, blubbering.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – It’s a simple task, gathering his frame into your arms and pulling him against you.

KIM KISTURAGI – The lieutenant tenses, his spine rigid. He seems like he’s about to try to remove himself from your arms…

EMPATHY – But then he catches sight of your face, tearstained and devastated.

KIM KISTURAGI – After a moment’s thought, he drapes his arms around you, resting his hands lightly on your back. One hand drags carefully up and down along your spine.

YOU – Whimper incoherently.

You attempt to inform the lieutenant of your dreams, and what they might mean for the future.

“Kim, I hada h’rrblevision n Iunnowhattado….!” 

COMPOSURE [Hard: Failure] – This is not working.

KIM KITSURAGI – Perhaps he’s gained a skill in the time you two have spent together, because he somehow manages to translate what you said. “A vision? You had some sort of nightmare, then?”

His hand has not stopped its careful ministrations against your back.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY – What you wouldn’t give to have that hand all over you…

LOGIC – Now’s hardly the time.

YOU – “It didn’t… feel like a nightmare. It felt real.”

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant nods slowly.

EMPATHY [Formidable: Success] – He’s been there before.

YOU – You feel a slight sense of relief that you aren’t the only one to have had such horrible dreams…

Then you remember what you were told in the dream.

SHIVERS – That you want someone to burn with you. That you want to be the cause of someone’s ruination.

SUGGESTION – Why are you not more horrified, then, when you look at Kim and realize that a part of you *does* want to ruin him?

EMPATHY [Godly: Success] Because it isn’t a matter of wanting him to suffer like you. You just want to see him… human. You want to see him vulnerable, warm, laughing…

ELECTROCHEMISTRY – You want to see him needing you as much as you need him.

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant watches you with his careful gaze. Questions are half-forming in his mouth, but he isn’t sure which question to ask first.

YOU – “We need to be prepared.”

COMPOSURE [Hard: Success] You’re finding yourself more able to focus now. If you work quickly, you can prevent that vision from coming true.

YOU – “I need… bullets. For my gun.”

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant tilts his head.

EMPATHY – He’s surprised that you’re already back in work mode.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Well, I have a few ideas. It may mean we need to speak to Evrart again…”

YOU – Pull your lips into a sneer at the mention of that name.

KIM KISTURAGI – “And if all else fails, I suppose I can petition the 57th to provide ammunition. It’s necessary to the case, after all.”

YOU – “Won’t that put them out?” You of all people are aware of how much Kim hates frustrating or disappointing his superiors. Asking them for supplies you should already have will certainly hurt his image, if the 57th is as tight-assed as you assume they must be to produce something like Kim.

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant pauses, considering your words, then gives you a small, playful smile. “Like I said, it’s necessary. If they truly are that put out, then… fuck ‘em, right?”

ELECTROCHEMISTRY – GOD YOU LOVE THIS MAN.

LOGIC [Medium: Failure] – The Kitsuragi you met your first day sober in Martinaise would have never said something like that to you!

PERCEPTION [Medium: Success] – Certainly not with such a charming grin.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY – It’s almost coquettish.

EMPATHY – The lieutenant feels himself changing the more time he spends around you.

YOU – You really are ruining him. It fills you with satisfaction.

**Author's Note:**

> Boy, titling this one was hard. I'm still not sure if I like the name, lol.  
> The martyr that Encyclopedia tries to remember is Saint Sebastian, or whatever the Elysian equivalent is. (Aka my major actually comes in handy for this project). Shoutout to Mishima Yukio for his wild homoerotic narcissism, otherwise I wouldn't have had such an apt reference.  
> This one was much harder to write. Ancient Reptilian Brain has a... something, that makes him both incredibly interesting and super hard to write. I enjoyed the challenge though!  
> While I'm not directly tying them, this fic could be seen as a follow-up to the others I've written.


End file.
